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Indiana University Studies 



"Didn't, didn't!" he answered, angrily; "waited for you three days, 

 dressed a breast o' mutton o' purpose; got a lobster, and two crabs; all 

 spoilt by keeping; stink already; weather quite muggy, forced to souse 'em 

 in vinegar; one expense brings on another; never begin the like again."" 



In the scene, however, where he nearly goes mad over her gift to 

 Albany/^ and in the several encounters which he has with the pom- 

 pous Mr. Delvile, we find some genuine comedy. Mr. Hobson provides 

 the most thoroly natural humor, for he acts more like a human being 

 than any of the others. The most interesting as well as the most 

 humorous situation in the whole book is that really impossible scene 

 in which he, Albany, Briggs, and Delvile are brought face to face. 

 Nothing could be more exquisite than the surprise and indignation of 

 Mr. Delvile at Hobson's coupling him and Briggs in the naieve 

 proposal that ''one of these gentlemen take t'other by the hand".'^^ 

 No humor brightens the pages of Camilla and The Wanderer. 

 They are both tearful books, and they maintain this character con- 

 sistently from the beginning of volume one to the conclusion of 

 volume five. It must not be supposed, however, that Madame 

 D'Arblay does not attempt to produce humor. Her frantic attempts 

 are only too obvious. Dr. Orkborne and Mr. Dubster, who represent 

 the more successful of these efforts, are pathetic rather than humorous. 

 Orkborne is an impossible philologist, whose distinguishing traits are 

 lack of common sense and absent-mindedness— but we expect even 

 a philologist to be rational. Dubster would have succeeded as a sort 

 of inferior clown, had the author not turned him into an absolute fool. 

 Yet even in this dreary waste, now and then we detect a glimmer of 

 her early power; as when speaking of a marriage between Dr. Ork- 

 borne and Miss Margland, Sir Hugh remarks: 



"However, if they would marry one another, I can't but say I should 

 take it very well of them. The only thing I know against it, is the mortal 

 dislike they have to one another. "^^ 



In spite of its greater tearfulness, The Wanderer has more attempts 

 at humor than Camilla, but it succeeds even less. Mr. Giles Arbe, 

 whose first word of greeting on entering a room is "Goodbye' shows 

 how attenuated the author's idea of the humorous has become. He 

 is really demented, but she considers him amusing. Caught tampering 

 with a parcel on the heroine's mantel, he says in apology: 



" Cecilia., I, 440. 

 " Ibid., IT, 286. 



79 Ibid, II, 293. 



80 Camilla, V, 545. 



SI The Wanderer, II, 222. 



